The two days were worthwhile and value for money.
The keynotes were of mixed quality, with the opening conference speaker particularly disappointing. The workshops were wide-ranging in content and generally very worthwhile.
Karen Boyes is always very practical, but Mark Treadwell was disorganised and ver disappointing. He was also one of the presenters who seems more interested in promoting himself and his upcoming book than the issues – this is the second time he has ‘coasted’ and I will not go to any of presentations again.
I attended the following workshops:
*Planning and Teaching for Deep Understanding Karen Boyes
practical strategies for helping teachers plan and students to think more deeply on a daily basis –have used. eg power of visualisation.
*Developing 21st Century Thinkers and Learners Karen Boyes
Similar to above but still useful – have implemented Most ideas came directly from an amazing book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
by Stephen Covey which I bought, read and was inspired by.
*Thinking, wisdom and values …. Mark Treadwell
Simply poorly prepared and presented – if I had been sitting near the door I would have left early. I felt very angry at the waste of my time.
*Empower your minds Michele North
*I can’t do ICT I have to do literacy Pauline McLeod
Very practical. English language perspective but generous with ideas and take-away disc.
Ideas a little low for secondary overall.
I have implemented numerous strategies, purchased recommended books and resources and shared all with colleagues formally and informally. Practising teachers who were willing to share resources and give copies or discs of their presentations were amazing.
The difficulties of accessing the conference presenters’ materials afterwards was never resolved by the organisers despite Angela and I both requesting help, and as these were promised at the start of presentations, fewer notes than usual were taken. This was a major disappointment of the Conference.
I loved the quote:
Change is coming…
good news: they will fix it.
bad news: you are they
best news: you are the acknowledged experts with the skills, knowledge and capacity to do it.
Chris I had the honour of presenting a session on wikispaces with Lizz O’Hagan. To be honest, Lizz presented the session brilliantly and I just helped with the basic IT side of things – the usual stuff; helping people log on, turn their computer on, turn their computer off………….! However, it was inspiring to see the interest from other teachers and I think, thanks to the skills of Lizz, people were more in tune with wikispaces. However, it did make me reflect on how much time is needed and how much time teachers put into creating these spaces for students to access. Overall, I enjoyed the conference because it enabled me to see all the good work that teachers are doing to develop teaching and learning within schools. Some of the keynote lectures were great. Being an historian, I particularly enjoyed the lecture that addressed changing pedagogies and how we are still, within schools, using an outdated pedagogy – something relating from the 19th century industrial period of ‘factory producing’ kids with loads of knowledge in their heads. The lecturer suggested that we should be moving away from this old style and develop a pedagogy that fits the modern (or post-modern?) era , thus creating learning environmemts that are relevant to modern (post-modern?) students. Much of what was happening withun workshops and presentations at the conference seemed, to me, ways in which we can drag teaching and learning into the 21st century.
Learning@Schools – Rotorua 2008
The two days were worthwhile and value for money.
The keynotes were of mixed quality, with the opening conference speaker particularly disappointing. The workshops were wide-ranging in content and generally very worthwhile.
Karen Boyes is always very practical, but Mark Treadwell was disorganised and ver disappointing. He was also one of the presenters who seems more interested in promoting himself and his upcoming book than the issues – this is the second time he has ‘coasted’ and I will not go to any of presentations again.
I attended the following workshops:
*Planning and Teaching for Deep Understanding Karen Boyes
practical strategies for helping teachers plan and students to think more deeply on a daily basis –have used. eg power of visualisation.
*Developing 21st Century Thinkers and Learners Karen Boyes
Similar to above but still useful – have implemented Most ideas came directly from an amazing book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
by Stephen Covey which I bought, read and was inspired by.
*Thinking, wisdom and values …. Mark Treadwell
Simply poorly prepared and presented – if I had been sitting near the door I would have left early. I felt very angry at the waste of my time.
*Empower your minds Michele North
*I can’t do ICT I have to do literacy Pauline McLeod
Very practical. English language perspective but generous with ideas and take-away disc.
Ideas a little low for secondary overall.
I have implemented numerous strategies, purchased recommended books and resources and shared all with colleagues formally and informally. Practising teachers who were willing to share resources and give copies or discs of their presentations were amazing.
The difficulties of accessing the conference presenters’ materials afterwards was never resolved by the organisers despite Angela and I both requesting help, and as these were promised at the start of presentations, fewer notes than usual were taken. This was a major disappointment of the Conference.
I loved the quote:
Change is coming…
good news: they will fix it.
bad news: you are they
best news: you are the acknowledged experts with the skills, knowledge and capacity to do it.
Angela
Angela's feedback from Learning at schools
Chris
I had the honour of presenting a session on wikispaces with Lizz O’Hagan. To be honest, Lizz presented the session brilliantly and I just helped with the basic IT side of things – the usual stuff; helping people log on, turn their computer on, turn their computer off………….! However, it was inspiring to see the interest from other teachers and I think, thanks to the skills of Lizz, people were more in tune with wikispaces. However, it did make me reflect on how much time is needed and how much time teachers put into creating these spaces for students to access.
Overall, I enjoyed the conference because it enabled me to see all the good work that teachers are doing to develop teaching and learning within schools. Some of the keynote lectures were great. Being an historian, I particularly enjoyed the lecture that addressed changing pedagogies and how we are still, within schools, using an outdated pedagogy – something relating from the 19th century industrial period of ‘factory producing’ kids with loads of knowledge in their heads. The lecturer suggested that we should be moving away from this old style and develop a pedagogy that fits the modern (or post-modern?) era , thus creating learning environmemts that are relevant to modern (post-modern?) students. Much of what was happening withun workshops and presentations at the conference seemed, to me, ways in which we can drag teaching and learning into the 21st century.